Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended down 0.1%. CNOOC Ltd. (883)
CEO, -0.53%
added 0.6%. On Friday, the Chinese state-owned oil giant released a statement seeking to allay U.S. concerns about its bid for U.S. oil company Unocal Corp.
UCL, +0.00%See full story.

But China's Shanghai Composite index was a notable exception, emerging from negative territory in the late afternoon, led by petrochemical producers and real estate firms. The index ended up 8.18 points, or 0.8%, at 1,101.88.

"The market saw a small rebound in the afternoon, but the turnover was still thin which indicated that most investors are still adopting a wait-and-see attitude," Li Feng, an Oriental Securities analyst, told AFX-Asia.

Gross domestic product rose 0.6% on quarter in the three months to March, and was up 2.5% on year, Statistics New Zealand said in the morning session. The on-year increase came in under a consensus forecast of 2.7%, according to AFX-Asia.

On Thursday, August-dated crude-oil futures climbed as high as $60.05 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange before closing at $59.42 a barrel, up $1.33. See Futures Movers. In early Asian trading, the contract was up 41 cents at $59.83.

The dollar was trading at 109.18 yen, compared with 108.85 in late U.S. trading Thursday. See Currencies.

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, +0.72%
ended at a five-week low, down 166.49 points, or 1.6% at 10,421.44. The Nasdaq Composite Index
$COMPQ
fell 21.37 points, or 1% to 2,070.66 while the S&P 500 Index
SPX, +0.59%
dropped 13.15 points, or 1.1% to 1,200.73. See U.S. Market Snapshot.

Tokyo shares

On the Tokyo Stock exchange Friday, declining issues outpaced advancers 801 to 696, while 153 issues were unchanged from Thursday.

A proposal by the company to increase its authorized share capital, or the maximum number of issued shares, was rejected at its general shareholders meeting held Friday. The company sought the measure to prepare against a possible hostile takeover bid by flexibly being able to increase the number of its outstanding shares, but it met opposition from some shareholders concerned about a dilution in the value of their shareholdings resulting from the step,

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